Making an Effort
by DrawMeASheep
Summary: An angsty little oneshot about why Ziva wears that ugly sweater. You know the one I mean.


Disclaimer: Penguins stole it. I would have caught them, but they got to the water.

Spoilers: Suspicion and Skeletons. And Shalom, a little. Wow, there've been a lot of 'S' episodes this year. Maybe because it's the Sssseasssson of Sssssecretssss.

Summary: Honestly? I just hate that sweater Ziva has. The one with the '70s earth-tone rainbow? _Hate_ it. I'm inclined to believe that Cote de Pablo pissed off somebody in wardrobe (mainly because I can't imagine anyone liking that sweater), but I don't suppose that explains why _Ziva_ is wearing the sweater (if we can pretend for a moment that Ziva is a real person who would _choose_ to wear such an ugly sweater as opposed to a character played by an actress who unintentionally took the last cherry Danish at craft services, thereby incurring the eternal wrath of the person in charge of dressing her.) So this is my own little explanation for why Ziva owns/wears the sweater. It didn't turn out funny like I thought it would, so sorry about that.

* * *

Ziva carefully made a space between two of the slats in the blinds drawn over her living room window and peered out. The navy blue Town Car with the dark tinting was parked across the street again. She had noticed it when she'd gone out for her run earlier; the early morning dimness had helped her to temporarily convince herself that it wasn't the same car that had been sitting on various streets outside her apartment off and on for months. She'd spotted it twice in the past week when she'd returned home after work, but it had been almost three weeks since she'd seen it in the morning.

She sighed heavily and walked toward the bathroom, where she turned on the shower and stripped, tossing her sweaty running clothes in a pile on the floor. She stepped under the warm spray and tried to remember what she'd been wearing the last time she'd seen the surveillance team. She went through her closet and drawers mentally, checking off everything she'd worn. Her mind kept coming back to the one article of clothing she consistently avoided. It looked like today would be the day she had to wear it.

She took her time drying her hair and brushing her teeth. Rather than getting dressed immediately as she normally would, she walked to the kitchen still wrapped in her towel to prepare breakfast. As she scrambled some eggs, she listened to the morning news on the radio. She sighed when the weather report came on – cloudy, cold, windy, chance of rain. Clouds lingering overnight, rain ending around dawn. Clear and cool tomorrow. It sounded like almost exactly like what she said during her monthly conversation with her father. Gibbs had involuntarily provided her with the tactic for dealing with unwanted phone calls during her first month on the team. Smile. Talk about the weather.

Finishing her coffee, she washed her dishes and utensils before heading back to her bedroom. The sweater she didn't want to wear was buried at the bottom of the last drawer of her dresser. She dug it out and shook her head. Some people should never be allowed to shop for gifts, she decided firmly, knowing that her decision had no effect on the necessity of wearing the sweater.

The first time she'd worn it to work had been a result of poor planning on her part. She'd been keeping it in her car, intending to pull it on the next time she saw someone waiting to photograph her, but she'd been caught without an overnight bag when Gibbs had dragged them to a rural town in western Virginia. Her choices had been limited to 'previously worn clothes' or 'ugly sweater.' She had almost opted for the former. Luckily, the Town Car had been parked outside when she'd gotten home that day, so she was sure the photos of her in the sweater had been seen by the right person.

She hadn't worn it since and that was almost a month ago. She'd worked out a system in her head for when to put it on – every eighth time she saw the Town Car, she would wear it. She could endure Tony's teasing about a family of partridges every so often. It was a small sacrifice.

* * *

Director David stormed through the halls of Moussad after his meeting concluded, ignoring the obsequious greetings of subordinates. He stomped into the antechamber of his office, ordered his secretary to hold all his calls and slammed the door behind him before she could respond. Pouring himself a generous drink, he sank heavily into the leather chair behind his massive mahogany desk.

Justifying his expenditures to politicians was never an activity he relished. Although it would make things easier, he couldn't tell them that he spent for the sole purpose of preventing their enemies from destroying them all and leave it at that. They didn't understand the intricacies and delicacy of intelligence work, nor could he explain some of the finer points without risking the welfare of his operatives. Knesset officials would happily sign any number of requisitions for Glock 19s or plastic explosives, but one Chanel gown on a purchase order set off the embezzlement and misappropriation alarms. "They should try watching some fucking James Bond films and imagining them as documentaries," he muttered to himself, taking a long drink.

Sighing, he resigned himself to getting some work done, if only answering some of his correspondence. His fingers automatically typed the familiar password that accessed his main email account. He scrolled down the list of headings, alert to anything unusual. He found one that had been sent earlier that afternoon that intrigued him. Glancing through the photos, he smiled.

He pressed the call button for his secretary. "Meira, would you step into my office for a moment?"

"Yes, sir?" she inquired, settling herself into the hard-backed chair in front of his desk, stylus and electronic tablet at the ready.

He surveyed her carefully. She had worked for him directly for several years, but he was not in the habit of confiding in her. "Do you remember a discussion we had several months ago? I asked for your advice on a…personal matter?"

She tucked the stylus into its holder on the side of the tablet and crossed her hands over it. "I do recall a conversation that was outside the bounds of our normal interaction, yes."

"And at that time you advanced an opinion of my judgment, correct?"

"I believe I may have contradicted you."

"Well…" He turned the monitor so she could see the photo displayed. "What do you think now?"

She nodded slowly in a manner that seemed more conciliatory than yielding. "It appears that you were correct, sir."

"Indeed, Meira. That will be all, thank you." He turned the flat-screen back to admire his wisdom further. Ziva had mentioned the cold in Washington on more than one occasion, so it had only seemed logical that he send her a sweater. She had thanked him for it, again mentioning the temperature, and she had been photographed wearing it on two separate occasions. The odds that she had randomly decided to don the garment on those two instances were indicative of the fact that she probably wore it fairly often. David did not believe in coincidences.

He was glad to see that she liked it; he hadn't been able to think of any other appropriate gift for his wayward child. A father wasn't supposed to be so confounded when looking for a present for his daughter. In spite of the evidence to the contrary, he sometimes found it difficult to think of her as a grown woman. His eyes were drawn to a framed photo of two smiling little girls, aged six and three. Celebrating her birthday had been so much easier when she'd been younger.


End file.
